The large majority of Brooklyn based Zs' output consists of their work as a sextet—a varied body of work focused around rhythmic intensity and textures based on duality. To reexamine the group's early recordings is to make a sonic map of the changing attitudes of New York new music and how the talent in the area learned to hybridize their surroundings and their musical skills. In that sense, Zs are the New York avant-garde personified; their role as a bridge between loft bands and chamber musicians, lo-fi and "high art" represents a lot of the essential artistic ideologies in 21st century New York.
Hotter than July. This week's episode has plenty of fresh new music by Marie Davidson, Kim Gordon, Mabe Fratti, Guided By Voices, Holy Tongue meets Shackleton, Softcult, Terence Fixmer, Alan Licht, pigbaby, and Eiko Ishibashi, plus some vault goodies from Bombay S Jayashri and Pete Namlook & Richie Hawtin. Solstice moon in West Midlands, UK photo by James. Get involved: subscribe, review, rate, share with your friends, send images!
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After a terrific debut EP in 2010, Bell Gardens finally return with a full album of mostly new music. As usual, the musical arrangements are lush and saturated with beauty as Brian McBride and Kenneth James Gibson try to recreate the moods and sounds of the golden era of pop studio recordings without using the typical computer-based short cuts and technological workarounds that have become de rigour for modern studio work. The end result is a triumph of song writing, musicianship and integrity, highlighting just how good humble songs can be without the need for following trends or to be striving to be the next big thing.
My opinion of Edward Ka-Spel has undergone a dramatic overhaul over the last few years, as the last several albums that I have heard have all floored me with at least one song (often more).  While he has been admirably devoted to making weird, uncompromising psychedelia for more than 30 years, he seems to be making some of the best and most disturbing music of his career right now (as evidenced here).  That is not to say that he has become dramatically less indulgent or difficult (unlikely to ever occur), but the high points of Ghost Logik are truly mesmerizing, haunting, and unique.
The worlds of dance and experimental guitar music rarely intersect (for good reason, probably), but the artistic director of Australia's Chunky Move company had a wild enough imagination to bring Ambarchi and abstract electronics maniac Robin Fox together to compose this soundtrack.  In many ways, that gamble paid off handsomely, as Connected is surprisingly inventive, challenging, and divergent (and no doubt inspired some very unusual choreography).  As a purely audio experience, however, it is pretty tame and comparatively characterless by either artist's normal standards.
Despite knowing Ulrich Krieger from a number of recordings, this is the first time I have heard one of his own compositions. Based on his work with Phill Niblock, Steve Reich and Zeitkratzer, I am not surprised by the form of Fathom (long tones, deliberate use of dynamics and a geological approach to timing) but I am surprised at how he has managed to take all his previous experience and influences and craft a truly original piece of music.
This is the first ever release for the new Editions Mego imprint curated by Emeralds' John Elliott and it is an extremely auspicious start.  Fabric is the guise of Chicago's Matthew Mullane and this is his first major release under that moniker, though he has previously surfaced on a number of limited releases as both Fabric and his own name. He describes himself primarily as a guitarist and "computerist," however A Form of Radiance is a wonderfully spacey, endlessly pulsing bedroom synth epic...that may or may not have been created using actual synthesizers.  Mullane's methods are inscrutable.
This extremely minimalist album of high-concept drone was composed as the soundtrack for a Michael Azar play about the life of one of the most iconic tortured artists in history: poet Arthur Rimbaud.  The actual music seems to have been secondary to the cleverness, veracity, and thematic consistency of the process, which I find both problematic and intriguing. That particular aesthetic often makes for an underwhelming and difficult listening experience, but Harar can sometimes be perversely mesmerizing in its simplicity too.
This Norwegian duo made a big splash in certain circles with their 2005 debut Pale Ravine, but their haunted, shadowy chamber drone held somewhat limited appeal for me.  While accomplished and unique, it was simply too cinematic and oppressively dark: whenever it was on, I felt like I was either trapped in a very slow-moving and somberly brooding art film or attending a witch-burning (both feelings that I generally do not actively seek out).  On this, their long-awaited follow-up, Deaf Center’s sound has become a bit more substantial musically and a bit less narrow mood-wise.  Also, they toned down the bombast and recorded in an actual studio.  All of that tweaking has cumulatively resulted in a significantly more gratifying album.
